Two Days Into This—July, 2o24
You’ve heard the old saying, “What a difference a day makes.” That familiar line has shown up in movies and, of course, the song written by Maria Grever and covered by everyone ever. Ever. That song, by the way, was originally written in Spanish in 1934 entitled “Cuando vuelva a tu lado.” Nearly 25 years later, it was translated into English and recorded by Dinah Washington, reaching No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100, winning Washington a Grammy for best R&B Performance.
There’s your nugget of learning for the day.
It seems like since the last time we were two days into this thing (the month of June), the easy summer sensations known and loved by nostalgic summer lovers of the past have decided to take their own holiday, ushering in the “hurry-up-and-go” lifestyles we (poorly) try to avoid a little earlier than usual.
I figure we’ll “inverted pyramid” this thing. Maybe not “inverted pyramid” per se—maybe more of an EF-5 tornado funnel cloud. (Chapman, that’s redundant.)
Unless you’ve been under a rock or intentionally avoiding the whole presidential political race, you no-doubt have seen coverage of “The Debate.” It’s been covered by everyone on both sides, and has been referred to everything from “a sad day in politics” to “elder abuse.”
In our drama-crazed world where the next episode of The Bear can be binged in a single day (did that) and season 185 of Law & Order is already in post-production, the drama is what we love. Maybe we can blame it on MTV’s The Real World or “sick day” episodes of Jerry Springer—in fact, maybe we can be the subject of a therapy session recorded for Lifetime or BRAVO or Neftflix itself! We could be the subject of the drama. We could be the catalyst!
It’s the dopamine hit of a lifetime…well, at least for now. Until the next one.
A few weeks ago, I had the chance to join my good friend Chase Parham on his podcast to talk about how social media, podcasting and media itself plays a pivotal role in local politics.
I also posted on my Instagram page why local politics have more direct impact on your daily life than either of the two octogenarians making passive aggressive statements and tired faces at each other do. Your local officials live in your community, drive your streets, go to your churches. Their kids are friends with your kids. The choices they make directly affect you. The only problem is, they don’t always come with a side of crazy drizzled the drama sauce.
If you’re a soccer fan, you’ve no doubt been keeping up with The Euros and Copa America. Echoing the above section, if you like drama, then world soccer is where it’s at. With Italy being KO’d from The Euros to the USMNT being punted out of Copa America, it’s been drama filled.
On the night of July 1, the US Men’s team faced off with Uruguay, needing only to tie in order to move on to the next round. This match up had the nation’s best players to ever play the game for the USA inside a program that has never provided more for its players (both the men and the women).
This match also had a referee pegged to govern this game who had almost no experience in matches at this level. The way football is played in North, Central and South America, it was a foregone conclusion that tempers would be hot and fouls would be a-plenty.
To say things got out of hand early would be an understatement. From the extremely high angle of the camera (I’m not lying) to the coach’s attention being on another game (not lying here either), it was like watching a house of cards fall down slowly (from an extremely high angle…ha).
Safe to say, Gregg Berhalter, the coach, is in the hot seat. We’ll see where this drama takes us.
If you’re still with me, at the very bottom of this EF-5 funnel cloud of drama sits my recent injury.
If you’ve ever been to the beach with a child, you’ve probably had to deal with swimmer’s ear, a painful bacteria infection that takes young ones out of commission for the remainder of the trip.
The funny part about this anecdote is that in the middle of our vacation, that time when I aimed at sharpening the saw, I was the lucky one to get swimmer’s ear. I’ve been met with mixed reactions, ranging from, “Oh, I’m so sorry!” to “Wait, are you 7 years old?”
It was no fun. I can tell you that. I made plenty of deals with God to get the pain taken care of. I’ve also never been more thankful for a reliable Nurse Practitioner having a clinic in Orange Beach and for my own primary care provider back home for helping me out.
The next time you see a kid with an ear ache, show more sympathy than you think you need to.
Titled Things: I finished “The Hidden Half: How the World Conceals its Secrets” by Michael Blastland. It was a good read. Not being a scientific professional, there were plenty of paragraphs I could skim over without missing much (it’s not like it’d sink in anyway). But it did challenge me into questioning assumptions in my own world and encouraged me to examine certain expectations. We’ve been raised on being skeptical, so why is it so easy to take claims at face value? In all of your life’s compartments, digging deeper into the things we know (family, faith, hobbies, etc) will allow us to know them even better.
I still have that stack of books I’m trying to get through, but I had one that butted in line: “Never Split the Difference” by Chris Voss. I don’t really have a desire to become a FBI negotiator, but I do like to review the Xs & Os of decision making. I’ve been working on trying to keep the objective aspects of a project front and center while using the subjective aspects to either enhance my efforts or identifying them as distractions. Easier said than done.
Up for the Challenge: My bill paying job has me connected to the school district at home. This year, we will enter our second school year under our Modified Calendar. This gives our students and teachers longer breaks in the school year, requiring us to start school two weeks earlier than others.
Personally, I love this schedule. With the heat wave doing it’s thing right now, it’s too hot to do anything or go anywhere. I’d rather have that time in October or March.
That being said, school is just around the corner. I’m excited to start my 16th year in education.
With that being at the top of my to-do list, I can’t help but think that running for a second term on the Clinton Board of Aldermen isn’t too far away either. We’ll be in that world of people running (or not running) and the talking heads around town will examine this, that, and the other.
I’ll be running again. It’s going to be fun. I hope the people of Ward 3 will see fit to vote for me again so we can keep moving Clinton forward.
I hope you have a great July. If you haven’t had a chance to listen to or watch my conversation with Chief Ford Hayman, I encourage you to do so. He’s truly one of the greats.
Be safe during the 4th. Watch out how you handle yourselves around those fireworks. And don’t forget to tell Terry to back up!
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